Eagles Snag NFL’s Top Free Agent Nnamdi Asomugha

Nnamdi Asomugha #21 the Oakland Raiders looks on from the sideline against the San Diego Chargers at Qualcomm Stadium on December 5, 2010 in San Diego, California. The Raiders defeated the Chargers 28-13. (Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

The team announced the deal shortly after 6:00 p.m. ET on Friday and Nnamdi has signed a five-year, $60 million deal with $25 million guaranteed that no one saw coming.

It’s an absolute slam dunk for Philadelphia, a team that never looked like they were truly in the running for Asomugha, and it makes Nnamdi the richest cornerback in the NFL.

What makes this one of the more bizarre and suspenseful free-agent signings in the history of the NFL is that all day long, the Jets and Cowboys were leading the chase for Asomugha.

But shortly before six-o-clock, Albert Breer of the NFL Network reported that the Jets were out of the running for Nnamdi. A few moments later Manish Mehta of the New York Post confirmed that report.

So it meant, obviously, that the Cowboys were wrapping up a deal to land Nnamdi, right? Wrong — Clarence Hill, Jr of the Dallas Star-Telegram reported that Dallas was out of the running for Nnamdi too, citing a text message from Asomugha’s agent.

“The Cowboys are not in the Nnamdi sweepstakes,” Asomugha’s agent Ben Dogra said in a text message to Hill on Friday.

Adam Schefter then reported that the Eagles backdoored the entire NFL and — poof! — just like that, everything we knew about how the Nnamdi sweepstakes went down changed entirely.

Jerry Jones not only got beat for the biggest free agent on the market in 2011, but he got beat by a division rival and a team that is probably the favorite to win the Super Bowl given their defensive improvements and offensive explosiveness.